


it's always darkest before the dawn

by ImNotStubborn



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix-It, Pregnancy, basically this is me bargaining with canon for a better braime ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 18:18:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19278814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImNotStubborn/pseuds/ImNotStubborn
Summary: Post-series finale, technically this respects canon (although canon definitely didn't respect us).





	it's always darkest before the dawn

 

Brienne leaves the temporary replacement for the White Sword Tower and heads back to her quarters quickly, making sure she doesn't run into anyone by taking corridors she knows will be empty at this hour.

She all but throws herself on the sit facing her window, uncaring of the discomfort from the armor digging into her skin at the brusque change in position, only relieved to not be needed on night guard tonight. For a minute she feels guilty about it, as always when she allows herself a proper night off since it means one of the men under her command has to stay up in her stead, but that's a burden she will have to learn to live with.

(Or so she's been told one morning merely a month into the Kingsguard by a laughing but -she thinks- caring Tyrion, a shyly worried Sam, and even a gruff Bronn. By then, she had still been strictly refusing to put the weight of such duty upon anyone else, and it was apparently starting to show –she'd blushed at their remarks when she'd remembered her barely concealed yawns from that very session of the Small Council. Ser Davos had waited until they were alone to almost casually suggest that Podrick replace her for once, and his warm smile when she'd conceded hadn't contained any of the condescension she was so used to getting from her male counterparts. She is still, to this day, unwilling to let anyone who's not either her former squire, herself or only a couple of other knights watch over their young king at night, but at least she gets a healthier amount of sleep per week now.)

She sighs, running a hand down her face, feeling the imprints of salty dried tears along dryer skin, fingertips lingering on her broken nose and too full lips –eternal reminders of her ugliness, were she to ever forget. Reminders of where she started too, from being Brienne the Beauty to becoming the first female knight, Commander of the highest, most important army in Westeros. To hiding away in her chambers, eyes red and swollen from needlessly crying over a past she cannot change.

Growing up, Brienne used to think that if she was to become the most unattractive woman in the seven kingdoms, at least it would keep her from harm by the opposite sex, and leave her with even more time to become the most honorable knight in all the kingdoms. She'd been wrong on both accounts, and that thought alone brings moist to her eyelashes all over again, as she struggles to swallow a sob.

“Seven blessings, Ser Brienne,” she hears from behind her and she turns quickly, hand on her hip and at the new sword she's had made after the coronation.

She relaxes when she realizes it's only Podrick, standing at the door she forgot to lock, looking a little sheepish that he surprised her since it's around the time he comes by every night she's not working.

She looks back down and away even as she gestures for him to enter, hiding her face from his scrutinizing stare that knows her too well for both their goods. And she guesses she indeed failed at concealing the telltale signs of her earlier meltdown, since the first thing he does when he's standing close to her is frown down in concern.

He doesn't say a word about it though, and simply gestures for her to stand up.

“Need any help with that armor?” he asks, more for show since it's the reason he's here.

She sighs, shaking her head even though it's pointless because she doesn't really have a choice. But this has become a familiar dance for them, a sparring of words they do every night and every morning, Brienne unable to stop herself from trying to push him away when she needs him more than she can say, Podrick accustomed to her enough to see through the pride and stubbornness and know when he should keep pushing.

“Ser Podrick, you shouldn't… I should get a squire to do that. You're not mine anymore, you're a knight now.”

She tries to say it with the pride she does feel at his very much deserved status, but instead it comes out as flat and low as her morale is these days. And Gods, does she hate the empathetic dullness that replaces the previous cheerfulness on his features, when he shouldn't feel anything but joy at the mention of his new title.

“Would you like me to go and get one, Ser?” he asks tiredly, knowing very well what her answer will –has to– be. “Or, maybe you'd like for me to go out there and just let all of Westeros know of what you've been keeping a secret?”

His voice has hardened, breaking the usual easiness of this half-conversation they have so often. She stares up, surprised at the unexpected attack.

“Podrick…” she warns.

Her voice is too weak to sound as threatening as she'd need it to, because she's busy trying to fight the shiver of unease running down her spine at the idea that he's confronting her about _this_ for the first time, today of all days.

He doesn't shy away from her stern look, but the faked coldness melts away from his face when she doesn't give him more of a reaction, and he promptly takes a seat beside her.

“I'm sorry,” he needlessly starts, and it pains her to see how frustrated he evidently feels about this. “But that is what will happen if I get anyone else to help you with this, Ser Brienne. Everyone will find out,” he adds, back to his softer tones now.

His caring tone is somehow more difficult to handle now, than his attempt at provoking her into defensive anger from just before.

“You know they all think we're sleeping together, right?” she asks after a beat instead of acknowledging his obvious win, unwilling to keep talking so outwardly of that topic she's been carefully avoiding for what feels like forever.

But before he gets to answer, she feels a tear escape her eyes, followed by another, and another, and soon too many to count, as she recalls the many whispers she's overheard in the castle these past weeks. People at court or elsewhere didn't exactly bother to be discreet when discussing the new members of the Kingsguard –and Brienne has definitely been talked about more than any other knight, and more than ever before in her entire life.

Podrick seems at a loss for words at her reaction, and she doesn't blame him. Months ago, she wouldn't have let this bother her so much. She would have blushed in embarrassment, might have called out the ill speaker in the moment, possibly could have challenged them to a dual to repair Podrick's honor –and possibly her own, even though she never cared much to fight for herself.

But nowadays, hearing anyone suspect that she might break her oath is more than she can take. Especially when they'll all eventually realize how right they were about her –although she truly had no idea when she took the vow and became Commander of the Kingsguard. It had only been a couple of months since the last night she had spent with _him_ and, after all, she'd had more preoccupying thoughts at the time than checking that her blood came regularly.

All the same, she knows the people won't concern themselves with such details, and will instead have a valid reason to believe she betrayed both her highborn status and her honor as a sworn knight to the Crown, whether they believe it to have been Podrick's or the late Kingslayer's –once tongues loosen about the days following the battle of Winterfell– doing.

She feels sick knowing that she's become unworthy of her own lifelong dream of knighthood, unworthy of the name they gave that damn sword she banished in the back of her wardrobe ever since the new Kingsguard got rid of nearly every trace of the Lannister House ever living and ruling in King's Landing. And she feels even sicker knowing that she sacrificed the future of her own House for nothing, that although her father has sent word of his congratulations about this latest pledge, he probably feels the same way deep down –and might rightfully feel even worse when accurate rumors of her carrying a bastard half-lion inevitably reach the isle.

Podrick steers her away from the darkening thoughts with one of his hands squeezing hers on her lap, her own fingers reflexively squeezing back. He doesn't say anything, unable to think of proper words for this situation, instead he simply pulls her closer for a moment, his armor awkwardly clanging against her own, masking the few sobs she can't stop.

It seems hours but is only minutes when Brienne finally feels the tears subside, and the apology she had prepared dies on her lips at the affection she reads in his eyes.

“You filled in the Book today, didn't you?” he guesses carefully, looking like he's bracing himself for another emotional torrent.

And of course he guessed that too. He's probably been waiting for this moment, aware that as much as she wanted to do it she'd been dreading the task too, and he certainly hasn't seen her display this much torment since that one awfully early morning in Winterfell when he found her… but she doesn't want to think about _that_ now.

She closes her eyes at the unpleasant memories, but doesn't cry this time –she has probably finally managed to dry herself out for a few hours– and nods before she looks at him again.

“It had to be done at some point,” she tries to explain, her voice less fragile than she'd expected, the worn out resolution in there tasting bitter on her tongue.

Podrick nods firmly, ever the agreeing squire although he's outgrown the part, reassuring her that she doesn't need to justify herself.

After a beat, he stands back up and gestures for her to follow, and she does obediently, too tired to disagree any longer.

He helps her take the heavy garments off, taking extra care when manipulating the breastplate as he's been doing for about a month now.

(Ever since she called for him one morning and he'd been put off, but happy to be able to help her again this unique way, until he realized he was having trouble tying the yet recently fitted armor around her abdomen. She had only avoided his eyes then, silently answering his unspoken question about the reason for this summon. And he hadn't needed to hear a single word from her to present himself without fault each morning and each night since then.)

She stretches when she's rid of the metal around her joints, buying a couple more minutes before she stops delaying the inevitable once more today and, for the first time since she figured it out, really looks down at herself. At the tiny, almost invisible deformation, low on her belly, of a tunic that used to be more loose-fitting than this. Her heart misses a bit and soon catches up with a vengeance at the sight of the bump, that looks so big to her after weeks of trying to ignore it, and she loses herself in a confusing mess of wonder and fear until she senses a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

Podrick smiles up at her, genuine and pure.

“You'll figure it out, Ser Brienne,” he finally says,and it's laced with the adoration he's always let seep into his words from their first journey together –that she has yet to believe she truly deserves.

Then there's a resolution building in his eyes, one that reminds Brienne of the rightful determination that used to define her until not so long ago, before he talks again.

“ _We'll_ figure it out. But for now, you both need your rest.”

She smiles back, feeling it wobble a little, and doesn't try and fight the obvious anymore.

Because she knows better than to protest than this isn't his fight and he shouldn't concern himself with it, and she knows that nothing could stop him from caring about her and her unborn child.

And so no matter the consequences, it's time she accepted all of it.

–

As sure of her own decision as she is, Brienne still struggles to fall asleep, her mind flooded with a thousand different pictures of whatever lays ahead now, and it feels like she only got ten minutes of sleep when she's awaken by a loud series of knocks on her door.

“Ser Brienne!”

She recognizes Ser Davos' deep voice at once, and there's a half-awake panic-filled moment after she lights a candle, where she struggles to find something to cover herself over her simple nightclothes. Even if she knows her height and muscles and masculine shape make her growing belly almost impossible to notice to strangers' eyes, and even if she's decided to come clean about it all soon, she isn't exactly planning to do so in the middle of the night.

She wraps a long blanket around her shoulders and braces herself as she opens the door, the oath-bound soldier part of her finally taking over and worrying about what this could regard in the middle of the night.

“Ser Davos, what is the matter?”

“I apologize for the late hour, Ser,” he starts, sounding sincere –and breathless, as if he's ran all the way up here. “I wanted to catch you before you retired for the night but… either way, could I enter?”

“Oh,” is all she can say at the odd request, confused and more than uncomfortable at the prospect.

“I promise this is worth your attention,” he adds, the intensity of his gaze and the urgency in his voice leaving her with no choice but to believe him.

“Very well, come in.”

He barely waits for her to finish closing –and locking, after he stares at the latch with insistence– the door, before he moves to the center of the room and turns to her, the light of the flame she's holding up making his severe expression almost frightening.

“There's something I have to tell you, and I'm afraid it couldn't wait until the morning,” he picks up. “On the last day of the war, when the Dragon Queen burnt down the city and the Red Keep fell–

“I don't think I want to hear this, Ser Davos,” Brienne interrupts him as she physically recoils, her voice cracking under the firm tone she was initially going for.

But Davos doesn't look chastised in the least, only even more focused than he did before.

“With all due respect, my Lady Knight, I think you do.”

She arches an eyebrow at that.

Ser Davos knows some, if not all there is to know about her relationship with _him_ , as he was in Winterfell the night before and days after they fought the dead together. Ser Davos is anything but a cruel man, and she has come to consider him a friend, the man she is definitely closest to in this new composition of the Small Council.

Which is why Ser Davos insisting on talking to her now, about something that he knows will bring her great pain, is disturbing enough to at least let him speak his piece before she digs out some the anger still buried inside her to chase him out of her chambers.

“Continue, then,” she says, resigned, and with a warning in her eyes -that he can definitely read if his curt nod is anything to go by.

“After freeing his brother, Lord Tyrion asked me to orchestrate an escape for his siblings, should they survive the assault. I had a boat ready to take them to Essos, but they didn't… didn't escape the ruins, as you well know,” he looks down as he says it, and she's grateful for the reprieve of his eyes on her when she's forced to think about this. “What you don't know, what no one else knows, is that after Lord Tyrion found their bodies in the rubble, he asked me to dispose of them. With the feud between his and his queen's families, not to mention the dislike for his House in her ranks after Queen Cersei's betrayal during the battle for the Living, he didn't trust that they would be put to rest in peace if they were to be found. And as he'd betrayed her himself by freeing Ser Jaime, he didn't expect he would get a chance to give them a proper burial either.”

Brienne hums at his tale, more intrigued than distraught –the jab she feels at her heart when she hears his name out loud, for the first time after weeks of only old and new unflattering nicknames, nonwithstanding.

It has been more than two months since that fateful day, and although she's not a maester, she knows that human flesh doesn't stay intact long after demise, and she dreads to think what he would look like now. Besides, they had held a quiet symbolic ceremony for all the fallen of King's Landing soon after both Queens' deaths, and although they certainly hadn't mentioned him in the sea of unnamed many who'd perished on the same occasion, Brienne had silently used that moment to mourn for Jaime too. Tyrion had never approached her about a more specific burial after, although she now expects he simply omitted to invite her –and it stings when she thought of him as, if not a friend, at least an ally, as the only other person in this world who loved Jaime for who he truly was.

But even so, such matters would have needed to have been taken care of much sooner. So what could this be about now?

The other knight seems to understand her puzzlement, and it is with a gentleness that is as unexpected as it is fitting, that he continues.

“Unfortunately shortly after, I had to tell Lord Tyrion that when I went back to recover the bodies, I only managed to find that of Queen Cersei, with no trace of Ser Jaime's anywhere near.”

He pauses then, obviously concerned by the loud, sharp intake of breath Brienne couldn't have stopped if she'd tried.

Uncaring what it looks like, long past trying to hide that any of this affects her as much as he obviously knew it would, she takes a step away from him and paces for a short while, forcing herself to breathe more slowly than her erratic muscles want her to, almost verbally forbidding her stupid heart from hoping for a ridiculously improbable outcome.

“I would assume someone else stumbled upon them in the mean time, and disposed of the Kingslayer's body as they pleased,” she eventually says, harsher than she meant to because of course she needs to distance herself from it.

Because although she hasn't seen or heard of a Lannister head on a pike or anything else as gruesome, it's the only truth there could be. There is no way he could have resurrected moments after his brother had seen him laying there, dead, and even less of a possibility that he could have gotten up unharmed and walked away unnoticed, even in the aftermath of the battle. Not with the state he would have been in, and not with that ludicrous golden hand attached to his right arm.

“That is close to what I told him,” Davos concedes, and she doesn't feel even slightly better that she's guessed right. “But you would assume wrong.”

“Ser Davos, please…” she almost whispers, shaking her head.

She doesn't want him to lift her spirits up, to give her something to hold onto, only to have it wrenched away from her in a few moments. She's had enough expected heartbreak to know it doesn't hurt any less when you can see it coming –enough of it to last her a lifetime.

“I had to tell Lord Tyrion so,” he starts again, and the uniquely both soft and firm tone he uses, the one Selwyn used a few times when she was much younger, reminds her that Davos once was a father too, “but it wasn't the truth. The truth is that although Cersei was well and dead, I found Jaime still breathing. Barely so, but breathing.”

Brienne doesn't cry, doesn't scream, doesn't say a word. She doesn't react at all, doesn't allow herself to, but it must be obvious that her life hangs on his every word right now because he keeps going without waiting for her to reply.

“I sent for a maester immediately, who didn't believe there was much to be done. I decided to keep silent on the matter as long as it was so unsure, but I still asked that he do all he could and had Ser Jaime transported on the boat I'd planned on using to get him out in the first place. The maester was sent with him, and I had him promise to find ways to update me on his recovery, whether good news or bad, along the way.”

There is a moment of silence then.

A long one.

One that lasts so long, Ser Davos feels the need to clear his throat and lifts his eyerows in question, and finally, she finds her voice again.

“You sent him to Essos?” she hears, and it takes her a minute to realize she's the one who asked.

It's a dumb question, and it's not even close to the thousands of other questions she really wants to ask. She wants to know about Jaime's exact injuries at the time he was found, and how Davos knows this maester didn't immediately get rid of one of the most hated men in Westeros by one side or the other, and some part of her also wants to know if he's interested in learning to fly out of her window for mocking her with such an unbelievable story.

But she can't ignore the strangely familiar energy coursing through her veins right now that seems to bring her back to a life she's only been half-living for weeks, the tingling along her nerves that she had to fight all those times her and Jaime bid each other farewell –forever, they'd thought each time– throughout the years, the overwhelming _need_ , now that she knows where he might be, to join him there and see him with her own two eyes. Alive or dead, good news or bad.

“The maester didn't think he could make such a long travel in his state, so I had to send him to the closest ally they could get to by boat.”

The tingling under her skin turns into a bursting fire and Brienne looks at him, really looks at him, before she dares to speak.

“You don't mean… That would have to be…,” but she can't finish the thought because it can't possibly be it.

Because this, Jaime surviving the war and being brought to the tiny bit of land her House rules over, the man she fell in love with finding safety under the protection of the man she admired most her entire life -and Gods, if this is true, how much does Selwyn know?- on top of everything else today, is simply too much. It has got to be some sort of hallucination, a fevered dream her hurting heart and conflicted mind have conjured after the emotional weight of this day, one she's going to wake up from in a minute.

But Davos doesn't let her dwell on those thoughts for long.

“The Isle of Tarth,” he confirms. “As you know, down in the Stormlands, politically far from the Iron Throne and the war itself, geographically close enough that he would have a proper chance to make it there.”

Then, in the oddly flickering light of the room, she sees him look down around her midsection with a frown, and she's terrified for a second that the blanket slipped and let something reveal. But when she follows his glance and finds the fabric still secure around her body, she notices her visibly trembling hands.

“Ser Brienne?” he asks, and his voice sounds like it's much farther away. “I think you should sit.”

She lets him take the candlelight away before she drops it, unable to claim she doesn't need the help when she truly feels too ill to stand any longer.

“You're still taking this a lot better than Lord Tyrion did,” she hears him mumbling once she's sitting on her bed with him standing nearby, and it's good to know her ears have apparently stopped ringing.

She clears her throat, hands carefully adjusting the wool around her frame so that the sitting position doesn't betray her state.

“Alright,” she says slowly when she feels settled, head still a bit heavier than usual, “I'm sure I can guess why you're telling me this now. So why don't you say it?”

And she can picture what comes next perfectly.

He's going to tell her that Jaime is dead, really and truly now, that he died a couple of days ago on her Isle. That Davos spent hours comforting Tyrion earlier which is why he only got to her so late, that he postponed revealing this little secret to both of them until now, because now there's really nothing more to expect. He'll add that he wanted to spare them the insane, unhealthy hope for the last two months, which Brienne understands -and how could she not, when he's come to confess tonight that _of course_ his crazy plan, his maester, and Jaime's body eventually failed them?

She thinks it's fitting that she's finding out today, after finally filling the pages that were left blank under his name, after finally deciding to confront reality.

But Davos shoots her an odd look, one she thinks she reads pity into, and she really wishes he would say it and leave already.

“Brienne,” he says, and she wouldn't mind the familiarity if it was any other conversation, “this isn't–“

“Just say it,” she growls, almost scaring herself with the ferocity of it, not the least interested in him softening the blow now.

His hand hovers between them for a moment, as if he was going to reach out and touch her, but he seems to think better of it when she continues to glare his way.

Instead, he goes to rummage through the pocket of his jacket, as he obeys her order.

“Jaime Lannister is alive and well on the Sapphire Isle.”

And before she can protest the ridiculousness of his words, his hand comes out and he drops a worn out piece of paper on her lap.

With a broken wax sigil of her own House and that exact statement on it, written in the lean, graceful letters she so often admired as a child.

 


End file.
